Words and Rules: The Ingredients of Language (Science Masters Series)

Pinker, Steven; Steven Pinker

ISBN 10: 0465072690 / ISBN 13: 9780465072699

Published by Basic Books/Basic Books, Inc./A Member of the Perseus Books Group, New York, 1999

About this Item

348 pp. Stated first edition! An excellent, spotlessly clean copy and dust jacket! Clean, fresh, sharp, tight, essentially flawless copy and dust jacket with crisp pages and clean text. Newspaper article placed by previous owner included.

Seller Inventory # 3ivBc0021

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Words and Rules: The Ingredients of Language (Science Masters Series)
• Publisher: Basic Books/Basic Books, Inc./A Member of the Perseus Books Group, New York
• Publication Date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0465072690
• ISBN 13: 9780465072699
• Binding: Hardcover
• Illustrator: Rick Pracher (Jacket Design); Marc Yankus (Jacket Illustration); Bethany Versoy (Author Photo)
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Like New
• Dust Jacket Condition: Like New
• Seller catalogs:
  • Poetry, Prose, Poems, Literary Studies
  • Language Studies, Linguistics, Phonetics, Speech
  • Literary Studies, Literary Theory & Lit. Criticsm

About this title

Synopsis

Who other than MIT scientist Steven Pinker could explore a single linguistic phenomenon - the use of irregular verbs - from the vantage points of psychology, biology, history, philosophy, linguistics, and child development?In Words and Rules , Pinker answers questions about the miraculous human ability called language and does it in the gripping, witty style of his other bestsellers. As the stories unfold, the reader is immersed in the evolution of the English language over the centuries, the theories of Noam Chomsky and his critics, the simulation of neural networks on computers, the illuminating errors of children as they begin to speak, the tragic loss of language from neurological disease, and more illustrations using humorous wordplay than anyone would have thought possible. Pinker makes sense of all these phenomena with the help of a single powerful idea: that the essence of language is a mental dictionary of memorized words and a mental grammar of creative rules.Pinker is well known for his skills of explaining the art and science of language. His bestselling book How the Mind Works was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, and was the #1 bestselling book for amazon.com in 1997. His other bestseller The Language Instinct was named one of the Ten Best Books of 1994 by The New York Times Book Review and nominated for the William James Book Award by the American Psychological Association.

About the Author

Steven Pinker is Professor in the department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.